Abstract

The authors report the electrical characterization of gold and gold-palladium nanowires failed by electromigration. Nanogaps in size are reliably made from metal nanowires by controlling the electromigration failure process, opening up the possibility of using these metal nanowires with nanogaps for molecular conduction studies and large-scale molecular junction device fabrication. Nanogaps are formed by applying a voltage sweep to the wires at a ramp rate of . The interplay between Joule heating and electromigration means that reliable nanogaps can be formed without the need of a feedback circuit, rendering the technique relatively simple to implement.